


I Always Cry At Endings

by AndreaLyn



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's pretty sure that he never believed in ghosts before this. He's given reason to doubt those beliefs when Gaila comes back from the dead -- in a manner of speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Always Cry At Endings

Jim wakes up to a vision in white lace lingerie at the end of his bed.   
  
Normally, this would be a thing of celebration, but in this case, the wearer of said lingerie has been dead for over three months and whose funeral he had attended only a week ago. He lets out a yelp of pain and surprise as he clambers for the covers and tries to hurry up the edge of the bed, desperate to get away from whatever waking-nightmare this is.   
  
“Jim,” she sighs. “Would you relax?”  
  
“Don’t...don’t give me  _relax_ ,” he sputters out, barely having caught his breath. “You’re  _dead_ , Gaila. You’ve been dead since the  _Narada_  engagement and now you’re sitting on the end of my bed looking like you did the first time we had sex. Except you’re also still  _dead_!”  
  
“Are the clothes what’s bothering you?”  
  
With a blink and in the flash of an eye, she’s suddenly in cadet reds. Jim’s not sure whether he’s set at ease by this new development or finding it even stranger. He settles for the strange part and keeps the covers clutched up to his chin. “Gaila,” he gets out patiently, his words measured, “What’s bothering me is that you’re dead.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And you’re here.”  
  
“Yes.” She sighs at that and relaxes back against his bed, lying parallel to Jim and peering over at him with a fond look in her eyes. “You’re the only one who can see me. I tried willing myself naked in front of your new Chief Engineer, but he didn’t react as if he’d seen anything, so I’m really beginning to think that you’re the only one who can see me.” She gives a shrug and leans on her side, peering at Jim past the covers. “I think it means that I need to do something for you.”  
  
“I don’t need a guardian angel or guardian ghost or whatever you are, Gaila. This is kind of creepy,” he points out. “We grieved you. I spent three days inconsolable because I didn’t know what to do without you and now you’re here, lying on my bed like nothing ever happened.”  
  
Gaila at least has the good sense to look ashamed at that, but it’s quickly superseded by indignation. “And I asked to die? Man up, James T and let me figure out how I get to the happy ever-after.”  
  
Jim doesn’t say anything, though he does think about it. He thinks things like,  _why did it have to be me?_  and  _why can’t anyone else share this burden?_  He thinks and thinks and doesn’t stop thinking until he finally looks up at Gaila and lets some of his worry and fear show.   
  
“What is it?” Gaila asks curiously.  
  
“I miss you so much,” he confesses. “Every day I wonder what life would be like if you’d just managed to get yourself on the Enterprise like you planned to, if that hack had gone through,” he says, laughing with a choked sound in his throat. “I wanted you there at my side when I was fighting off Romulans instead of knowing that you were lost somewhere out in the void of space and I’m...I’m telling this to a ghost. I’ve gone mad,” he admits, shaking his head.  
  
“You’re not crazy, Jim,” Gaila sighs out the words fondly. “But you are a little bit off. Now, put that genius brain of yours to work thinking of why I’m here and how you’re going to help me move on, why don’t you?”  
  
Jim’s at a loss because he’s never had to deal with the supernatural before. He doesn’t even remember dealing with grief because here he is at twenty-six and he still hasn’t fully dealt with his father’s death, so how’s that for adjusting normally?   
  
He stares at Gaila like he’s going to get an answer, but she doesn’t have one and Jim’s not divining anything from the great beyond that’s about to help either.   
  
“You think I have the answer to help you move on?” he finally asks dubiously because it’s better than this weird staring contest they’re having.  
  
Gaila shrugs and brushes her mad curls back over her shoulder. “You seem to have an answer for everything else!” she perkily comments. “Why not this too?”  
  
And that’s how it starts.   
  
At first it’s not so bad. It’s almost like Jim is a child again and he has an imaginary friend watching him over his shoulders constantly. He makes quiet comments and delights when Gaila laughs so brazenly loud because no one else can hear her. He catches himself looking her way every time he makes a decision to search for the approving nod. She’s there for him every step of the way and he doesn’t even feel guilty about not helping her to move on because sometimes Jim’s selfish and he likes having her around.  
  
“What are you smiling to yourself about?” Bones asks as he leans his forearms over Jim’s captain chair in a way that is decidedly claiming of his own territory. Jim’s been meaning to razz Bones about that, but other stuff always gets in the way.  
  
Right now, it’s ‘why is Gaila looking at Bones like that?’ He mouths a  _what_? in her direction and she just shakes her head.   
  
“I’ll tell you later,” she says aloud, just as Bones is commenting, “You look like an idiot.”  
  
“But I want...I do  _not_ ,” Jim attempts two conversations at once and feels like he definitely fails with both. “Bones, don’t you have a Medical Bay to run? Nurses to glare at? Patients to make cry after you cure them of their debilitating ills?”  
  
“Twisted ankles and burns from attempting to make stills in Engineering are not debilitating ills,” Bones grumbles, staring at the spot where Gaila is standing and watching this little show. “What in god’s name  _are_  you staring at?” he demands. He peers at the spot on the floor where Gaila has conjured up her very favourite black pumps for herself, but of course he doesn’t see them.  
  
Jim’s not sure if he’d be relieved or further worried if suddenly Bones could see her, too.   
  
“It’s nothing,” Jim insists, turning to give Bones his full attention. “Really. Tell me why you’re here and we’ll discuss it instead of talking about how you’re clearly avoiding sickbay or somebody  _in_  sickbay for some reason.”  
  
So Bones launches into some long diatribe about Starfleet’s new mission to catalogue the various bio-signatures of the galaxy they’re in and every once in a while he gestures and his fingers brush through Jim’s hair or catch his neck.  
  
Gaila just perches on the arm of his Captain’s chair and rests her palm on his hand, rubbing slightly and though Jim knows that there’s nothing there and he actually can’t feel anything, he feels almost  _warm_  and protected.   
  
“Don’t look now,” she whispers into his ear. “But Spock’s just made the vein in his forehead throb.”  
  
And Jim laughs warmly, not caring  _who_  thinks he’s a psycho-raving-lunatic captain who’s lost all of his mental faculties.   
  
*  
  
Suddenly, without any warning, Gaila goes from being his constant companion to vanishing all-together. At first, Jim thinks that maybe she’s moved on, but he hasn’t done anything to warrant something life-changing and he has to think that this has to be a mistake. Maybe she had never been there in the first place. Maybe her mere appearance in his life is indicative of some mental-health break that Jim’s going through because of the duress of being Captain so young.  
  
He spends three days arguing with himself about whether or not he needs to go to Bones and ask for a psych evaluation.  
  
On the fourth day, he comes back to his cabin to find Gaila twirling in his chair and tapping a pencil thoughtfully to her mad red curls. Jim wants to hug her, but he’d tried that early on in this little partnership and had found that while he could see and hear her, she’s not corporeal. So instead he fixes his best Bones-glare on his face and puts his hands on his hips like a disappointed mother.   
  
“And just where have  _you_  been?”  
  
“Figuring things out,” Gaila responds enthusiastically and with a slightly manic and angelic look to her face. It’s like she’s going to solve all his problems in one, but possibly cause fire to a deck of the ship. “It took me some time to put all the pieces together because you’re one strange jigsaw puzzle, Jim, but I got it. I found out how I can help you. You just have to trust me. Can you?”  
  
Jim isn’t sure what was going on, but Gaila looks so keen on doing him good that he has to try and go along with this mad scheme of hers. “Of course,” he agrees, not knowing what he was signing his name to.  
  
It takes him longer than he really wishes it did to figure out what’s going on.  
  
It all clicks two days later when he was sitting and eating dinner (and Gaila was having a conversation with him, by extension). She nudges him in that ghost-way of hers – nothing more than a breath of chilly air against his side – when Bones entered the mess hall.   
  
“He always eats alone, you know,” she points out.   
  
“That’s because he hates small talk over dinner,” Jim replies. “I know that lesson. He spilled vinaigrette all over my pants.”  
  
“You sat there thinking up synonyms for a woman’s nether regions, Jim, I remember that dinner,” Gaila says accusingly.   
  
“I was drunk.”  
  
“It was three in the afternoon.”  
  
“After a final on a Friday!” Gaila looks at him with reproach on her face and shakes her head disapprovingly. Jim’s slightly confused because he doesn’t understand why they’re suddenly going over Bones’ Greatest And Gruntiest Hits catalogue at this hour of the day. “I’m talking to myself, I must look insane,” he mutters. “Why do you care about whether Bones eats alone?”  
  
“Because you always eat alone too. He hauls out that PADD of his and you seem to think that means Do Not Disturb.”  
  
“It does!” Jim insists frenetically.   
  
“Maybe to everyone else, Jim, but not to you,” Gaila points out. “Go and sit with him.”  
  
“Gaila, you are not going to move onto the great beyond because Bones and I shared creamed spinach,” Jim says in a deadpan, only slightly afraid that said creamed spinach is going to end up on his lap if he isn’t careful about this – whether by Bones’ volition or Gaila’s ghostly abilities. “It is not that stupid or simple.”  
  
“No, but you may just move on because you could have  _someone_  in your life who doesn’t expect you to be your father’s son, a hot man, or a Captain that saved the world and they only know him from the news!” Gaila argues back heatedly. “I did not die just so I could watch everything go back to the way it was.”  
  
“You weren’t supposed to die at all!” Jim shouts hoarsely, on his feet and staring at her accusingly. “We were all supposed to graduate  _at the right time_  and serve on a ship while Bones probably puttered around on some  _miserable_  space-station while he figured out he hated life without m... _us_  and then after an appropriate amount of time for a genius like me, then we were supposed to put in our time and save the world. Not like this! Not like how we lost you, six  _billion_  Vulcans, and the crews of the other Starfleet ships! Gaila,” he protests weakly, unaware that the entire mess hall is now staring at him and there is absolutely no question whatsoever that everyone thinks he’s insane. “That’s  _not_  how it was supposed to go.”  
  
He feels a hand at his elbow and for a moment he thinks it’s her, but when he turns, Bones is there looking at him with a worried look on his face. “Jim,” he speaks in a soft hush. “C’mon, Jim, let’s get out of here, okay?”  
  
Jim blinks rapidly as he realizes that he’s definitely thrown away any chance of Bones treating him like a normal man. He probably thinks that he’s buckled under the stress of Captaining a ship and if this is how he’s about to lose the  _Enterprise_ , then Jim doesn’t think he can take it lying down. “Bones,” Jim pleads.  
  
“Not here, Jim,” Bones says sharply, yanking him out of the mess hall and straight to his private quarters instead of going somewhere like Medical where there’s probably a white coat waiting for him.   
  
It  _really_  doesn’t help that Gaila is toddling along behind him, lurking like the constant presence she’s become.   
  
The door slides shut with the same assuring hiss that’s been there since it left the Iowa dry-docks and Jim paces back and forth, worrying his hands so his hands will have something to do while he tries to figure out a defense.   
  
“Look, Bones, I haven’t cracked,” he says bluntly. “I’m not insane and you don’t need to declare me medically unfit, I just…I see Gaila.”  
  
“And you’re trying to convince me that you’re  _not_  crazy,” Bones pointedly reminds him, his brow arching upwards in that classic ‘I don’t buy a word of this bullshit’ way he’s got. “Look, Jim, if you’re not sleeping or something is getting to you, you should have come to talk to me sooner. I could have prescribed you a sleeping pill or tried to get you into some of the hobgoblins’ favorite meditation exercises.”  
  
“He really doesn’t believe you,” Gaila says sympathetically from where she’s draped over Bones’ desk like she’s just waiting for him to turn around, see her, and get right to the afternoon quickie that a position like that suggests. “Jim, tell him…tell him that I know about the Orion he couldn’t save.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just tell him,” Gaila insists.  
  
“What do you mean, what?” is Bones’ response to him.   
  
“She says, Gaila…she’s here and on your desk looking like she wants you to ravish her, by the way, but she says she knows about the Orion that you couldn’t save,” Jim says, looking past Bones’ shoulder so that Gaila can direct him on what to say during this particular conversation. He definitely feels like he’s just the medium and barely pays attention to the message as he speaks. “Vina, Gaila says that by the time you got to her, she was far past the point of saving and by the time you called her in to say goodbye, she knew there was no chance. It was a genetic disease, it had wreaked havoc. It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
Bones has gone from staring at him in disbelief to staring in horror. “I never told anyone about that. I didn’t even tell you.”  
  
“No, but apparently you went out drinking and Gaila couldn’t get you to stop and you wouldn’t let her explain that to you. You stormed off after telling her that it was all your fault,” Jim agrees and looks to Gaila, who seems pensive and quiet.   
  
There’s a heavy amount of tension in the air between them as Jim revels in the relief that finally the topic of the day isn’t ‘how to fix Jim’s life so Gaila can move on’.   
  
“She’s really here,” Bones realizes.  
  
“Yup. Ghosts are, apparently, all kinds of real.”  
  
“Oh, then I am fucked,” Bones admits with a push of breath out as he collapses into a seat in a chair, staring at Jim with a stricken look on his face that makes Jim want to ask about just which ghost Bones is terrified of ever seeing. He pinches the bridge of his nose and turns around to look at his desk over his shoulder, as if something might have changed and he might be able to see Gaila now.  
  
Jim doesn’t realize he’s counting on this fact, too, until he feels the flood of disappointment when Bones turns back and shakes his head, admitting defeat.  
  
“Anyway, she thinks I need to help her move on,” Jim offers. “Except I can’t figure anything out and she’s still dead and now I’m losing my temper in the mess hall and everyone thinks I’m a raving lunatic,” he bemoans, gripping his hair as he sits on the edge of Bones’ bed. “Starfleet’s going to suspend me for sure.”  
  
“Let me handle the crew, Jim,” Bones assures. “You just worry about this.”  
  
He pushes to his feet and clasps Jim on the shoulder lightly before leaving the room to Jim and Gaila and the awkward silence that’s stretching between them now that the truth has fully come out. Jim looks to her, expecting more explanation about Vina or maybe something about how she knows what he has to do.   
  
She’s looking contemplatively at him and Jim looks right back, ready for any response.  
  
“You know,” she says simply. “You should watch him in the shower sometime. He’s a very handsome man.”  
  
Jim lets out a scoff of a laugh as he shakes his head. “You think me hooking up with Bones will help you move on.”  
  
“I think you venturing into a terrifying new type of relationship with your best friend will give me the peace of mind that you’re taken care of and will allow me to stop being the guardian-ghost-over-your-shoulder,” she translates and then gives him the prettiest smile she has, the one that always had Jim’s stomach in knots. “Yeah. I do.”  
  
Jim just shakes his head, trying not to laugh at the sheer insanity of that statement and he goes straight for Bones’ illegal bar to pour himself a double because he really needs it after a day like this.   
  
“Gaila,” he protests tiredly.  
  
“I’m really not joking about the shower.”  
  
“Yeah, I got that,” is all Jim can muster out between his incredulous laughs.   
  
*  
  
Jim is now being followed by a meddling matchmaker who likes to keep him awake with whispers of possibilities and insistent comments for him to  _take notice_. He watches as Bones picks broccoli every day with his dinner and always drinks the peach juice when the replicator is giving it out. He lets Gaila tell him that on Fridays, Bones likes to wear a lucky shirt that has one of his cuffs just slightly frayed. He notices the fact that Bones always makes calls back home on Sunday mornings and Gaila finds out that Bones gets the kitchen to reduce Jim’s pork intake on Tuesday-morning breakfast.  
  
“Okay, Gaila,” Jim finally snaps when she’s in the middle of describing Bones’ sleepwear. “Did I ask for a meddling mother-figure?”  
  
“No. But if you wanted me to be that,” she says thoughtfully, brushing perfect nails over her shirt, “I can always point out that he is a  _doctor_.”  
  
They continue their walk down the hall and he makes sure to try and keep his conversation private so that random ensigns who pass him aren’t ready to run back to Starfleet and tell them that their Captain is off his rocker. They round the corner to Jim’s private quarters and Jim rubs at his face while Gaila starts chirping on about the fact that apparently, Bones is the one who left a birthday gift for Jim last year.  
  
“He knows I hate my birthday,” Jim counters. “You’re crazy. Crazy and dead, but mostly crazy,” he accuses stubbornly.   
  
“He left it anonymously and you  _told_  me how much you appreciated the fact that someone thought of you and not George Kirk on that January day,” Gaila argues right back. Jim had almost forgotten this about her in that she gives as good as she gets when it comes to a good argument. He doesn’t want to ever forget that and he wonders, pleads with some heavens above, dares to think that he’ll hold onto this memory of her forever.  
  
He knows that’s just not possible, though. He knows one day it’ll fade away until all he remembers is the beautiful glow of her green skin under fluorescent lights and her mad hair. He won’t remember the one curl that never behaved and he won’t remember that she likes to sing antiquated songs at the top of her lungs in the shower or that she snuffles and talks in her sleep.   
  
Jim pinches the bridge of his nose as he digs out the reports for the day to try and lose his thoughts in that. “Gaila, please drop it,” he begs. “I like Bones, you know I do, but even if this would help you to move on…maybe I don’t want to ruin everything by telling him that yes, okay, sometimes I want him to make me feel like it’s all going to be okay.”  
  
She perches on the edge of his bed (in cadet reds today) and smiles at him as her hair falls down over her shoulders.  
  
“Don’t…don’t look at me like that,” he orders, sliding his reading glasses on from the first drawer.  
  
“Like what!” she pipes up innocently.   
  
“With that all-knowing smile of yours,” he adds. “All women have that smile and you are severely abusing that privilege of owning such a hot one,” he teases lightly, glancing over the rims of the glasses to deliver his little barb. “Whatever you know about Bones, I don’t.”  
  
He buys himself two minutes of silence with that remark. He should have really expected it to be short-lasted, though.   
  
“He bought you those glasses from the antique store because he thought you looked sexy in them,” she supplies. “I wasn’t there,” she says helpfully. “But he made a comment to the shop owner, who knows Henderson, who was talking about it with Chapel, who said so to Uhura, who then told Spock. So now Spock thinks that the doctor has a secret kinky fondness for humans wearing glasses. Don’t worry, though. It’s just you.”  
  
“Gaila!” Jim snaps. “I’m trying to work, here!”  
  
“If you just went and talked to him, this would…”  
  
“What, this would what?” he interrupts her. “I  _like_  him. I think he’s attractive. I want him to make me feel protected. I’m not writing him love letters and painting our initials on the ship’s hull!” He wants to throw his padd against the wall because now she’s got that infuriatingly calm smile on her face. “So what if I go and talk to him about all of this! It doesn’t change the fact that I’m not sure I want to tell my CMO that sometimes I think about him kissing me until I can’t breathe and fucking me until I’m sore and then cooking me breakfast in the mor…ning…” he trails off when he feels someone breathing on the back of his neck and since Gaila is still on the bed in front of him, that means someone’s wandered in during his little speech. “Please, let it be Spock,” he notes to his ceiling.  
  
“You’re outta luck, kid,” Bones drawls.  
  
Yup. Jim’s fairly sure that someone upstairs hates him very much. He’ll have to send a message with Gaila when she shuffles along for those beings watching over him to kindly  _fuck off_.  
  
Jim turns and offers Bones his best sheepish expression, trying to somehow laugh it all off and make sure that this doesn’t suddenly turn into an even  _more_  awkward situation. “Bones, this is just Gaila pushing me, I swear, I…”  
  
Bones is looking at him in a curious way that Jim hasn’t seen ever before. It’s measured and serious and for once, Jim wishes that it was anger or frustration because at least then Jim would know how to deal. Instead, he’s left gaping and unsure of what to say or do at all. He runs through ten strategies in his mind and tries to figure out which one will result in Bones not being utterly pissed at him.   
  
“Just forget it, okay? She’s under some delusion that if I have sex with you, she moves on.”  
  
No response from Bones, but his face contorts up into something that Jim recognizes (there’s that disbelieving reaction). Instead of Bones replying, though, Gaila takes the opportunity.  
  
“I’m not going to move on if you have sex,” she says tenderly and Jim looks at her because he’s so rarely heard that tone from her. Gaila is confident and suave and knows who she is. She can go out in nothing at all or everything in the world and pull it off. Gaila’s not supposed to sound vulnerable like that. “Jim, I need you, I  _want_  you to take a leap. And maybe it’s not Leonard, but you need to jump, Jim. Nyota and Spock are happy and comfortable, but it wasn’t easy to get them there and it’s not going to be easy if you decide to be with him, but Jim, you can’t be the James T. of the Academy anymore. You’re a Captain now…”  
  
“Jim…” Bones is hesitantly starting, his words overlapping Gaila as she continues earnestly and Jim takes hesitant steps in her direction as if something will shift and change and he’ll be able to touch her now, take her close and hold her and not ever let her go.   
  
“…and that means you’re going to go from being that genius boy who never grew up into a man. I’m not saying you need him, I’m not saying that you’ll die without him, I’m not saying he’s Prince Charming…although, he looks good enough to be,” she adds offhand. “I’m saying that you need to take this leap. You need to be able to risk everything if you want to be a good starship Captain. Because if you can’t, Jim, then you’re still that boy and everyone aboard this ship needs you to be that man.  _Especially_  Len.”  
  
“…Jim, I know this has been a trying time for you,” Bones has been saying and Jim finally turns away from Gaila, eyes misty and his face stricken, which shuts Bones up pretty quick. “What happened? Is she still here?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jim agrees hoarsely. “Yeah, she’s still here.” He clears his throat and presses a bent finger just below his eye, pressed to a heated cheek as he stares at Gaila and wants to be able to just  _leap_  like she says, but he’s terrified. “Bones, you know you’re my best friend, right?”  
  
“Jim, let’s skip the obvious facts theatre,” Bones pleads. “What the hell is going on?”  
  
“I think I’m ready to leap.” He’s not sure even as the words slip past his mouth but as he stares up at Bones and thinks about the small things that constitute a  _relationship_  (all the things that had made being with Carol amazing before she had left him) and thinks about applying Bones into all those scenarios and it’s…well, it’s pretty damn calming. Jim turns to look at Gaila, who’s starting to go slightly transparent.   
  
His eyes widen with sudden alarm as he stares at her. “Jim?” Bones asks warily. “Jim, what is it?”  
  
“Gaila!” Jim shouts in alarm, trying to grab her by the arms, but his hands just fall through and her skin grows lighter, her whole being seems to start drifting into oblivion. “Gaila,  _no_ , I haven’t done anything yet, nothing’s happened!” He’s starting to panic and he’s grasping for straws that are clearly not going to do anything to help. He looks to Bones and he’s all determination and vigor to  _stop this_. “Bones! What do I do?”  
  
“I’m a doctor, not a goddamn psychic, Jim,” Bones growls at him, but he sounds like he’s just as upset that he can’t do anything about it. “I don’t know,” he haplessly admits and offers a hand in the air. “I don’t even know what’s going on…” he adds under his breath.  
  
“Gaila, please, not yet,” Jim begs. “I just said I’m ready, I haven’t done anything, I don’t know what to do next. You do, you  _know_ ,” he insists, shaking his head rapidly as he feels the choking sensation in his throat grow worse, like he’s stuck on Delta Vega again and it’s so cold that the air around him is killing him just to breathe because he can’t actually inhale so much as take short breaths and pray some of it takes. “ _Please_ , Gaila,” Jim begs, voice going small as he stares at her and the way that his pleas aren’t taking. She’s still vanishing right before his eyes and this time she’s really going to die because he’s never going to see her again. He stares at her, wishing more than anything that he could at least hug her one last time, bring her close and promise her that it’s going to be okay. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Jim insists firmly, thinking of Ambassador Spock and of all the lives lost and of _Gaila_. He can feel Bones behind him, but all he can see is her. “Our lives weren’t supposed to go like this.”  
  
“Goodbye, James T,” Gaila says with a bittersweet smile on her face as she looks at him with fondness. “It’s not over yet. You’re not done, but you’re just getting started. Take a leap, Jim,” she coaxes and lets out a sad-sounding laugh. “Maybe I won’t be here to see it, but your crew will. Be good to them and be good to yourself and don’t you worry about anything else. Just think of their well-being and you’ll be a  _great_  Captain, just like I always knew you would be.”   
  
Jim watches as the last traces of her vanish into thin air and he still doesn’t have all the answers at his disposal, but he’s lost a friend for the second time. He leans forward until his weight is supported by his desk.   
  
It’s silent, now, and all he can hear are his labored breaths as he stares down at documents and Captain’s business that all demand his immediate attention.  
  
“Jim?”  
  
“She’s gone,” Jim says roughly.   
  
“Gone from…?”  
  
“ _Gone_ ,” he says again with more sharpness and now Bones must understand because he doesn’t question Jim again. He rubs at his eyes and feels raw on the inside and out. He takes another long breath and tries to compose himself, but he’s still bent over the desk as if the weight of grief is weighing on his shoulders so heavily that it could buckle him to the ground. He feels Bones’ hand on his back and can sense how tentative he is, feels him as he presses closer and wraps his arms around Jim’s waist to bring him back against his front.   
  
It’s not quite a hug so much as it is swaddling. Jim almost wants to laugh at the fact that he’s being treated like a fussy infant, but it helps his panicky breaths. He takes a deep breath and leans back against Bones as his breaths slowly elongate and become more composed.   
  
“Hey,” Bones is murmuring. “Jim. It’s going to be okay.”  
  
“I know,” Jim agrees, even though he’s not sure he knows  _how_  it’s going to work, just that it will. “I’m gonna jump.”  
  
“Don’t you dare make a mess when you land,” Bones growls right in his ear.   
  
That makes Jim laugh and he leans back against Bones’ body heavier than before. “Oh, don’t worry, Bones. I’m planning on having you break my fall,” he assures and thinks to himself that if Gaila could see him right this second, she might even be something like proud of him. “Just, be there for me? I know I might be about to make a mistake with this, with you, but if it is a complete fuck-up, I really kind of want you at my side while I do it.”  
  
“Well,” Bones says heavily and considerately. “Suppose I don’t have anything else to do with my life.”   
  
“Then we move on together,” Jim announces and it’s half an order, a quarter a desperate plea, and a quarter wishful hoping. Somehow, Gaila had moved on because this is supposed to be the way it goes now.   
  
Jim doesn’t want to screw that up for her.   
  
“We can do this,” Jim says, mostly for his own benefit. “I can do this.”  
  
 _I can do this for her._


End file.
